Government Executive - Authors - Randy Barrett

More R&D spending proposed, earmarks criticized

Randy Barrett — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The R&D figure represents a $3.4 billion increase, or 2.6 percent, over fiscal 2006. Within that, the request for basic research is $28.2 billion -- up $357 million, or 1.3 percent.

White House science adviser John Marburger said the administration's overall science funding request is flat, but non-defense R&D nevertheless would be boosted 1.9 percent. "The effort to reduce the deficit has an impact on all discretionary programs," he said.

The administration is particularly annoyed by earmarks and argued in budget documents that the practice works against R&D fiscal planning. "Earmarks that divert funding from a merit-based process will undermine America's research productivity," the White House said in the budget.

Many of the winners in the fiscal 2007 budget would benefit from the American competitiveness initiative, or ACI, recently proposed by President Bush. The project calls for $50 billion over 10 years to boost spending on research and science and math education. Next year's request is $5.9 billion, including $1.3 billion in new funding and $4.6 billion for the R&D tax credit.

The R&D account of the National Science Foundation would receive $4.5 billion in the budget request, a $349 million increase. The core account at the National Institute of Standards and Technology would get $535 million, up $104 million. The research pot for the Energy Department would be $9.2 billion, an increase of $595 million.

"NIST is positioned to play a key role in advancing our nation's innovation and competitiveness," Director William Jeffrey said. "The ACI will give us the resources we need."

Networking and information technology research also would fare well under Bush's plan. The administration asked for $2.78 billion, up $239 million, or 9.4 percent.

"[The] increase in support for advanced networking research in 2007, primarily by NSF, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and [Energy] will ensure that large-scale networking technologies will keep pace with the rapid developments in petascale computing systems," White House budget documents said.

Under the budget, the National Nanotechnology Initiative would receive $1.3 billion, an increase of about $77 million.

Homeland-security-related research funding for fiscal 2007 would be about $4.8 billion, administration officials said. That would include $535 million for the Pentagon's office for domestic nuclear detection, improvised explosives research, cyber security, and food- and livestock-protection projects.

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Administration releases details on competitiveness initiative

Randy Barrett — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Under the plan, which seeks to double federal spending on physical sciences research and development over 10 years, the Energy Department will request $4.1 billion for fiscal 2007, a $505 million increase over fiscal 2006, or 14 percent increase. The new money would go to the department's science office.

"This is an historic step and will change the future of science in this country," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement. "These funds will also provide new educational and training opportunities that will give the next generation of scientists, teachers and engineers the tools they need to succeed."

Within the science office, Bush will request $1.4 billion for the basic energy science program, a $286.4 million increase over fiscal 2006. The group conducts research on improved energy technologies and materials science.

Other programs slated to receive new money include science research on nano-scale materials, or those at the molecular and atomic levels, which would be up $51 million; the hydrogen fuel initiative, up $18 million; the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, up $100 million; and the National Synchrotron Light Source II, up $45 million.

The advanced scientific-computing research program would receive an $84 million increase, for a total budget of $319 million in fiscal 2007.

In a White House press briefing Thursday, science adviser John Marburger said the full request for the research and development portion of the initiative will be $50 billion in new money over the next decade. But the plan also calls for making the R&D tax credit permanent, which would cost about $4.6 billion per year, Marburger said.

Domestic policy adviser Claude Allen outlined a few more details on the education portion of the initiative, for which the administration will request $380 million in fiscal 2007.

To reach a goal of 100,000 new science and math teachers in elementary and secondary schools, Bush plans to train 70,000 teachers and put 30,000 math and science professionals into the classroom as adjuncts.

We want to "encourage and to get students excited by giving them a vision of what the future looks like for them in the field of science, math, engineering, technology," Allen said.

The administration also wants 700,000 low-income students to take advanced-placement math and science tests in high school.

In workforce training, Bush has set the goal of giving 800,000 workers career-advancement accounts of up to $3,000 each to learn skills.

Allen also said the administration wishes to improve the flow of skilled foreign workers into the United States and will work with Congress to raise the number of H1-B visas available to such workers. Currently, 65,000 H1-B visas are granted each year.

"They are consumed very quickly at the first of the year, and we need to look at increasing that," Allen said.

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Cyber crime is growing more professional, officials say

Randy Barrett — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The change in hacker motivation -- from seeking fame to seeking fortune -- occurred in 2004 and 2005, said Art Wong, vice president for Symantec, at a roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill sponsored by the company.

"Hackers are working for financial profit and gain -- not fame," Wong said.

Online miscreants are now more interested in releasing worm viruses that hide and gather personal information, than in inflicting big-splash viruses that take down networks. "It's very much more insidious than in the past," Wong said.

Even more troubling are botnets, which are specially designed networks for hacking. They are propagating quickly in the United States, Europe and Asia. In some cases, these botnets are rented out to third-party hackers.

As hackers get more sophisticated, they also are becoming more professional -- often working Monday through Friday during daytime hours. "These are people who are doing this full time," Wong said.

Federal investigators also are seeing more of a focus on stealing money. "Most of what we're seeing is financial fraud," said Larry Johnson, a special agent with the Secret Service, who added that online account takeovers are on the rise.

Much of the information stolen by hackers reaches the streets, as personal information is sold between criminals, Johnson said. There is also a robust black market in hacking tools and exploits.

Federal agencies are working together more closely to fight the problem but more cooperation is needed, said Andy Purdy, acting director of the national cyber security division at Homeland Security Department.

The future holds more trouble as specialized hacker groups rise. "Some will just create [deceptive viruses known as] Trojans, others will just help you transfer money," said Wong. He also predicts more botnets that will facilitate phishing sites. The phishing sites look like official company sites but are in fact fake sites to lure a consumer into revealing personal financial and other data.

"For the consumer, the biggest hurdle is education and awareness," said Wong. "Today the [online] environment is more dangerous than it has ever been in the past."

"Prevention is first and foremost," Johnson said.

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New biometrics group focuses on frequent fliers

Randy Barrett — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The group, called the Voluntary Credentialing Industry Coalition, will be led by Wexler & Walker Vice Chairman Tom Blank. Its members include ARINC, ImageWare Systems, Iridian Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Panasonic, GE Security, Saflink and Verified Identity Pass.

While there are numerous trade associations representing the security and biometrics industries, Blank VCIC will focus on voluntary credentialing programs and related issues of consumer privacy and data theft. "What we're trying to address is the public policy component," he said. "We expect to have an impact on a full range of federal credentialing" projects.

The first order of business is Registered Traveler, which is designed to let pre-cleared, frequent fliers carry biometric identity cards and speed through security checkpoints at airports. The program finished a test phase at five airports in 2005 and soon will be expanded nationwide.

The agency is seeking advice on business models, technology and liability. In submissions last week, VCIC told TSA that consumer privacy is a top priority. "We urge that TSA require ... any issuer of Registered Traveler memberships be subject to the standards of the Federal Privacy Act" and state clearly whether data will be shared with third parties.

"One of our highest priorities is articulating and delivering on our coalition's commitment to strong, accountable privacy protection standards," Wexler & Walker Chairman Anne Wexler said in a statement. "And last week's submission to the TSA on privacy protection makes it clear that we intend to be proactive rather than defensive when it comes to that issue."

Privacy watchdogs have expressed concern about how personal consumer data will be safeguarded. "In the case of Registered Traveler," the Electronic Privacy Information Center said on its Web site, "TSA has identified 13 categories of 'routine uses' of personal information," with several being "so broad as to be almost meaningless."

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Research funds headed for small, but noticeable, cuts

Randy Barrett — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Last weekend, Congress agreed to a 1 percent "haircut" across all government programs to pay for deficit reduction and costs associated with rebuilding the Gulf Coast region after the summer's hurricanes.

As it now stands, the government would spend about $135 billion on research and development in fiscal 2006, according to an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"It's not 2 percent," said a somewhat relieved Kei Koizumi, director of the research and development budget and policy program at AAAS. "But still [the cut] has big impacts."

The higher rescission figure was discussed as Congress began the process this fall. The Senate still must clear the bill. That vote has been complicated by the addition of language to authorize oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The new research and development total would leave most agency research coffers flat, with the exception of the Pentagon, Koizumi said. The final budget for the National Science Foundation's research program would be $4.15 billion, down $42 million.

The Pentagon is the largest federal supporter of basic research work conducted at universities, and defense research and development funding saw some notable increases, thanks to congressional appropriators adding money beyond the Bush administration's request.

The Defense Department's total research and development allotment would be $73 billion, including the rescission. That comes to $1.5 billion more than last year, or 2.1 percent. Congress added $3 billion to the Pentagon's science and technology budget, for a total of $14 billion.

But Koizumi said the real plus would be in the form of earmarks for projects in lawmakers' states and districts. Those would deliver $6.7 billion to the military's basic and applied research accounts, despite the Pentagon's proposed cuts to the programs. Congress traditionally adds money into the accounts, and this budget cycle was no exception, Koizumi said.

Robert Boege, executive director of the Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America, welcomed the total government research and development budget numbers for fiscal 2006. "Considering what the [rescission] alternatives would have been, it's a good thing," Boege said.

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Science, tech programs fare well in 2006 spending bill

Randy Barrett — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

NSF, which funds the majority of university-based basic research, would receive $5.7 billion under the measure, up about 3 percent from fiscal 2005. The agency's research account would be $4.4 billion, up $167 million over last year.

"In general, considering the circumstances, it is a very good appropriation," said Kei Koizumi, director of the research and development budget and policy program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

NSF already has withstood an 0.28 percent overall budget cut, the result of the ongoing deficit-reduction process, Koizumi said. And there is talk of an additional, across-the-board cut of 2 percent for all federal non-defense programs in fiscal 2006.

"So far, we are satisfied," said Robert Boege, executive director of the Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America. "But there is a lot more to go." He added that the NSF budget needs to grow 7 percent each year to keep up with inflation.

House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, who pressed the Bush administration to improve R&D funding, seemed happy as well. "Given the significant budget constraints facing Congress right now, it is especially gratifying to see NSF treated so well," the New York Republican said.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $762 million under the legislation, including $80 million for the Advanced Technology Program and $106 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program -- both of which the White House sought to kill. The agency's science and tech budget would be $400 million, up $21 million.

The bill also would allocate $125 million to the Justice Department for a new information-sharing technology program. Conferees on the bill asked the attorney general to establish an "investment review board" to help oversee the process.

The department also would receive $500,000 for a third-party privacy assessment.

"The department is the repository of large amounts of personal information, much of it related to counter-terrorism initiatives," conferees wrote. "With this comes the responsibility of managing and protecting this personal information."

Appropriators expressed unhappiness regarding Justice's failure to report on the establishment of a privacy and civil liberties office, which was funded at $690,000.

Justice further would receive $10 million in fiscal 2006 to target cyber and intellectual property crimes, plus $27 million to investigate and prosecute identity theft. And the department would receive $90 million to upgrade its mobile radio systems.

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Systems cannot combat flu pandemic, health officials say

Randy Barrett — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The heart of the problem is not tracking influenza but getting critical information on outbreaks to doctors and local emergency responders and then back to crisis planners, Tara O'Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, said at a Capitol Hill panel sponsored by Trust for America's Health.

"Right now we have a very clunky system to allow the medical [community] to communicate," O'Toole said. Digital patient data would help alleviate the problem by letting doctors quickly transmit and share information about illness. "Electronic health records are a matter of national security," she added.

Health experts are now warning of an inevitable flu pandemic based on the virus H5N1, which has devastated Asian chicken populations and infected 117 people who had direct contact with sick animals, according to the World Health Organization. Sixty of those people died. The 50 percent death rate is unprecedented in modern history, O'Toole said. By contrast, the 1918 Spanish flu killed only 2 percent of those infected.

The key to good communication about any spreading epidemic is accurate information, Jeff Duchin, chief of communicable disease control at the University of Washington, said in an interview with National Journal's Technology Daily.

"One of our challenges is to sort through the large amount of information coming across our screens to find out what is reliable," Duchin said. For example, recent news of a viral resistance to Tamiflu, a treatment for the flu, proved to be false. "You really can't put a lot of stock in a single report," he said.

Most epidemiologists depend on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for updated alerts. "Then you need to get the information to the front lines with doctors and hospitals," Duchin said.

Internet bulletin boards with backup systems on secure Web sites would help, he added, but many local responders work outside cyberspace. "A lot of folks are hard to reach," he said. "Not everyone is on the network."

Duchin said the footwork and relationship-building need to occur before a health crisis. "It's pretty old-fashioned; you have to put people on the ground [to establish trust]," he said.

Unfortunately, experts agree that local governments have little money for such planning, and consequently little work has been done to prepare for a pandemic flu outbreak. "Hospitals are not well-integrated into disaster preparedness plans," O'Toole said. "They are not ready."

Scientists are closely watching for changes in H5N1, which is now only two amino acids from being able to transmit itself from person to person. Experts also agree that containing such a pathogen is nearly impossible given modern travel habits.

"A quarantine is not going to work in containing this flu," O'Toole said.

Instead, government officials and health workers are hoping they can spot a pandemic early and slow the disease through the use of limited anti-viral drugs if it occurs this winter. "We must act now to get prepared," she said.

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Report: Patent office should become federal corporation

Randy Barrett — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0400

In a report summary obtained by National Journal's Technology Daily, NAPA recommends incorporating PTO as the best way to improve its performance. The tech industry advocates PTO reforms designed to speed patent awards and improve the quality of submissions.

"As a self-sustaining federal entity that performs a direct service for fee-paying customers, [the patent office] needs to be able to function like a business and report to Congress and the administration with a bottom-line set of financial statements," the memorandum said.

The CEO position should take the place of a board of directors, NAPA said, and an "advisory board could provide stakeholder input" from people interested in patent policy.

A PTO spokesman had no comment on the recommendation but said an official response will be included in the final report when it is released in the near future.

Incorporating the agency is not a new idea. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., unsuccessfully introduced legislation in 1997 to do just that. The measure was defeated by small inventors when it was attached to a larger bill they did not support.

The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) supports incorporating PTO. "We believe that allowing the PTO to function as a government corporation would greatly enhance the ability of the office to retain fee revenues to process their work," AIPLA Director Mike Kirk said.

Historically, PTO has had to remit to federal coffers all of the fees it collects from patent applications. Congress has redirected much of that money to other agencies even as the backlog in processing applications has grown.

The NAPA report endorses the end to such fee diversion. PTO "needs to continue to have access to the fees it collects without fiscal-year limitation so that it may achieve efficiencies with steady stream funding and improve its ability to hire and retain the ... workers critical to its mission," the memo said.

Turnover among patent examiners is high. Most leave the agency within three to five years. With such high attrition, seasoned examiners must be pulled off cases to train new workers, Kirk said.

A bill to let the agency keep its fees -- which amounted to about $800 million over the last 12 years -- was introduced earlier this year. But the future of the measure, H.R. 2791, is in doubt because appropriators are unwilling to forgo their revenue stream, industry officials said.

The NAPA report also recommends instituting a "post-grant review" system to allow objectors to new patents to state their cases outside the court system.

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Legislation to elevate cybersecurity post may die in Senate

Greta Wodele and Randy Barrett — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The House in May overwhelmingly approved a measure, H.R. 1817, to tweak programs at the department. It includes a provision to elevate the cybersecurity mission by promoting the director of the department's cybersecurity division to the assistant secretary level.

"The cybersecurity mission is too important too handle at this relatively low level," read a summary of the legislation authored by the House Homeland Security Committee.

While similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate, it is unlikely the chamber would vote on a bill this year. It has been bogged down with fights over President Bush's nominees and legislative work is expected to slow further as senators will debate Bush's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Industry representatives have applauded the House language, which was introduced last year as a stand-alone bill. However, that measure was never sent to the House floor for a vote.

Industry groups repeatedly have urged the government to do more to protect against debilitating cyber attacks on critical infrastructure -- a majority of which is owned by the private sector.

"This can come up and bite us in a number of ways," said Paul Kurtz, executive director of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance. "I hope Secretary [Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff and the administration will see fit to give [the position] more attention. A deputy secretary will not do."

Tech industry executives said Homeland Security is nearly wholly focused on physical security issues -- not electronic ones. Chertoff is currently reviewing department staffing, and some hope he will act to name a high-level cyber-security secretary soon.

"I have a sense Secretary Chertoff understands something is rotten in the state of Denmark," said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America. "How can it be a critical issue when the U.S. government has buried the position five levels down?"

A government report in late May reinforced supporters' arguments for the elevated position. A study conducted by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative wing of Congress, found that the department had not fully addressed 13 responsibilities, including drafting a plan to protect critical infrastructure and identifying cyber threats and vulnerabilities.

The department agreed at the time that officials had much more to do on the cyber-security front but disagreed with GAO that it has not made significant progress on that mission since the department's inception nearly three years ago.

Despite the sense of urgency, the department has yet to name a new director of the cybersecurity division. The former chief, Amit Yoran, resigned late last year. Andy Purdy, the acting director, has been running the division temporarily.

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Homeland Security doles out research money

Randy Barrett — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

McQueary has about $1 billion to grant to homeland defense research in fiscal 2005 through the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. Nearly 40 percent of that money, about $400 million, is being spent on biodefenses. So far, the agency has awarded 200 contracts out of 7,000 proposals.

"We've had an enormous response," McQueary said.

One particularly tough area is interoperable communications for first responders in steel-framed buildings, like the World Trade Center, which was destroyed by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. "It's a hard problem," he said. Another troublesome area is protecting against shoulder-fired missiles: "We don't have a solution for it tomorrow," he said.

The Pentagon is looking for better ways to track terrorist threats at sea, said Peter Verga, the deputy assistant secretary of defense. In particular, the Defense Department wants a bird's-eye view of vehicles, much like the current air-traffic control system. "We want the same type of view of the maritime world as we have in air and space now," he said.

Going forward, security vendors will have to fight harder to get contracts, predicted Darryl Moody, senior vice president for homeland security and intelligence at the consulting firm BearingPoint.

"The amount of sole-source contracting has diminished," he said. In addition, many contracts are now being consolidated as Homeland Security aims to eliminate duplication among previously separate departments.

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Plan for federal ID badges gets mixed reviews

Randy Barrett — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

The standard, released Feb. 25, sets rules for an ambitious "smart card" to be worn by all federal employees and contractors beginning in October. The cards will include photographs, agency serial numbers, personal ID numbers, two fingerprints and cryptographic keys.

Getting all that information on a chip card, as required by the standard, is the subject of some controversy. Advocates of competing optical-memory technology -- which can hold up to 2.8 megabytes of data -- insist that the standard will fail because integrated circuit cards, also known as smart cards, can only hold a maximum of 64 kilobytes of data.

"We think they're on a path that will lead to a backwater," said Steven Price-Francis, vice president of business development for LaserCard. Francis thinks the new ID card will need at least 200 kilobytes of memory to be useful.

Joe Anlage, president of a startup optical-reader company called American Laser, said the government standard requires too much data compression. "They have truncated file sizes for biometric ID to the point where they are essentially unusable," he said. Anlage also said smart-card projects at the Defense and Homeland Security departments have fallen into the same trap.

Smart-card advocates disagreed. "That's not supported by the facts," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, made up of companies from many fields and government agencies that favor the use of smart cards. Smart cards have been successfully tested with full image and fingerprint files compressed to 20 kilobytes, he said.

"This is misinformation coming from an industry trying to fight for a spot in the market," Vanderhoof added.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which developed the standard, said card memory stopped being a problem after it dropped plans to include facial-scan data on the ID cards. "Storing two fingerprints on a card is not an issue," said Ed Roback, chief of NIST's computer-security division.

Roback also said federal agencies did not request optical-memory technology during the standard-setting process.

At least one privacy group is mostly pleased with the final standard. In particular, a requirement that each agency assign a senior official for privacy to conduct comprehensive privacy assessments is welcome, said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. "Coming from the feds, that's pretty big," she said.

But Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the government has the whole process wrong. "It's backward to do the standards first and the [privacy] policy second," he said.

Roback said ID privacy policy should not be set for the entire government in one document. "Each agency has to do it in the context of their own environment," he said.

NIST plans to put the standard out for review again in about one year so new technology can inform the process, Roback said.

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Ridge: Centralized tech spending key to homeland security

Randy Barrett — Thu, 26 Jun 2003 00:00:00 -0400

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on Thursday that his agency will centrally control all information technology spending in its fiscal 2005 budget in order to guarantee that new computer systems deliver the right intelligence to the right people in a timely manner.

The new department, comprised of nearly 180,000 employees from 22 agencies that already existed, including customs and immigration entities and the Transportation Security Administration, plans to spend $829 million on upgrades to information analysis and computer security in 2004.

Ridge told a group of about 300 IT contractors in Alexandria, Va., Thursday morning that information compatibility is crucial in the fight against terrorism. "We need access to quality information that is actionable," he said. "We will never be able to address our vulnerabilities with disparate computer systems."

Ridge said Homeland Security is developing an IT roadmap to create a centralized data system accessible by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The plan will be complete in the fall, he said and it will follow these five principles: All levels of government must be treated as one; information must be captured once at the source; all information must be accurate; systems will be secure and constantly updated; and civil liberties will be respected.

The department has the daunting task of safeguarding all of America's entry points from terrorist incursion. That not only includes screening millions of travelers at airports and borders but also protecting U.S. ports, which move millions of presently unguarded cargo containers every year.

Most law enforcement databases are not currently integrated. The failure of federal, state and local agencies to share information was widely recognized as a key culprit in the failure to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plots.

Ridge is keenly aware of the problem and is therefore centralizing all IT spending at the headquarters level starting in the department's 2005 budget. "We understand how important it is to knock down barriers to information sharing," he said. "We can't build a system if units within the department are free to go out and contract on their own."

Central to the system is the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which blends intelligence from the CIA, FBI, Defense Department and Homeland Security's Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. Getting that information to local "first responders" to emergencies in time is crucial to success, Ridge said.

"You can only secure the homeland if the hometown is secure," he said.

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